An Update from Latvia (November 21, 2014)

Category: Abortion, Sharing the Message of Lutherans For Life, After the Abortion

Dr. Lamb recently received an update from Jãnis Diekonts of Lutherans For Life of Latvia. Here is the slightly edited email:

On November 1st, our pro-life conference took place in Riga. We had three speakers. One was me, the second was a pro-life gynecologist, and third was a woman from a Catholic pro-life organization who works with mothers. Together with the speakers there where 18 attendants.

Archbishop Janis Vanags opened the conference with a short message about the importance of pro-life work and prayer. He stayed and listened to the first two presentations.

This year the theme was “Conscience.”

I presented a lot of scientific research about maternal death statistics after abortion and drew a psychological portrait of a woman after abortion.

Generally it shows that abortion is four times deadlier than childbirth. Then I proceeded with discussing how conscience works without Christ and with His forgiveness. We went through confession, atonement, justification, and reconciliation … to see what leads to these maternal deaths in the “dominion of darkness” and how the conscience gets right in the “kingdom of His beloved Son.”

The second speaker was a gynecologist who is one of few pro-life gynecologists in Latvia. A few years ago he became popular when he and his wife decided not to do abortions. He shared his experience from the time before he became a Christian and what he was thinking about abortion then. This was a really good insight into a gynecologist’s mind when he does abortions and how he deals with his conscience.

When he and his wife refused to do abortions, all other gynecologists in his hospital refused too. His presentation was a good piece of information for me.

The last speaker was a leader of a Catholic pro-life organization. She is a professional psychologist and spoke about God’s values and their importance in forming the personality of children.

We had a small presentation about 40 Days for Life in Latvia too.

The conference went well and I was able to speak with two priests from the Roman Catholic Church and some other pro-life people. The sad thing is that no Lutheran pastors came to the conference. Your booklet “Life Issues and the Pulpit” is on the way to our pastors. Two congregations will use our booklets in their confirmation classes. I hope it will expand more in future.